Febrezehttp://www.adweek.com/taxonomy/term/3924/all
enSuspicious Web Domains Cost Online Ad Business $400m per Yearhttp://www.adweek.com/news/technology/suspicious-web-domains-cost-online-ad-business-400m-year-148788
Mike Shields<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/fea-hot-air-02-2013.jpg"> <p>
If your therapist thinks you have trust issues, you might just work in online advertising.</p>
<p>
That&rsquo;s because it&rsquo;s getting harder and harder to know what&rsquo;s real and what isn&rsquo;t on the Web. And if you don&rsquo;t believe in ghosts, maybe you should.</p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="/files/fea-hot-air-01-2013.jpg" style="width: 350px; height: 461px; margin: 10px; float: right;" />On March 19, Adweek.com published a story titled &ldquo;<a href="/node/148032">Meet the Most Suspect Publishers on the Web</a>.&rdquo; In the piece, we brought to light the issue of so-called &ldquo;ghost sites,&rdquo; seemingly innocuous content pages responsible for massive amounts of traffic on various ad exchanges but exhibiting little evidence of actual human audiences. Upon further examination, many of the sites we uncovered, including Alphabird&rsquo;s <a href="http://ladyshopspot.com/" target="_blank">Ladyshopspot.com</a> and Precision Media&rsquo;s <a href="http://toothbrushing.net" target="_blank">Toothbrushing.net</a>, contained little in the way of substantive content.</p>
<p>
A large number of the sites in question are suspected of getting huge chunks of traffic from bots&mdash;that is, nonhuman traffic delivered by machines designed to mimic users and inflate audience and traffic numbers for publishers while stealing from advertisers.</p>
<p>
In fact, as our investigation was coming to a head, a British company, <a href="http://www.spider.io/" target="_blank">Spider.io</a>, dropped a bombshell: A botnet dubbed Chameleon had infected more than 200 Web domains, many of which corresponded with the sites Adweek had been examining. Spider believes Chameleon is <a href="http://www.spider.io/blog/" target="_blank">costing the industry $6 million a month</a>.</p>
<p>
As it turns out, we may have just scratched the surface.</p>
<p>
Since our initial story, numerous industry sources have stepped forward to help us unearth still more suspect publishers. Some have blamed traffic vendors or affiliate brokers for peddling bogus traffic, implying that certain questionable publishers could be innocent. That has only served to muddle the picture, and further erode the industry&rsquo;s trust.</p>
<p>
Since our story, the data-driven ad targeting firm Media6Degrees (<a href="http://www.m6d.com" target="_blank">m6d</a>) has noticed 500-plus dicey new sites popping up on various exchanges&mdash;and collectively, 40.5 million bid requests. One site, says Alec Greenberg, vp, media operations at m6d, exhibits more than 50 percent user overlap with 463 other known exchange pubs. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty sure that&rsquo;s a new record for us,&rdquo; he says.</p>
<p>
Another buyer estimates that hundreds of millions of bogus impressions have been traded on ad exchanges in the weeks since our story. &ldquo;Put another way, at least 15 to 20 percent of all real-time bid requests are probably fraudulent in some way,&rdquo; he says.</p>
<p>
Seni Thomas, CEO of Heights Media (previously known as Audience Amplify, a heavy exchange buyer that we reported on in our original story), says he and his team have since identified a new group of suspicious publishers&mdash;sites that have suddenly seen their exchange traffic soar by 10 million to 80 million impressions per day. It seems the botnet may have shifted.</p>
<p>
The <a href="http://www.radiumone.com/" target="_blank">social ad data firm RadiumOne</a>, which also spends a lot of time in the exchange world, estimates that ghost publishers, shady Web crooks and their bot-employing associates are stealing a staggering $400 million a year from the online ad business.</p>
<p>
Experts say it&rsquo;s impossible to catch all the bad guys, especially since many are said to originate from outside the U.S. (India, Israel, Eastern Europe). Containment is the more realistic goal.</p>
<p>
Following are more suspicious publishers we have homed in on:<br />
<strong><a href="http://Mevio.com" target="_blank"><br />
Mevio.com</a></strong><br />
This video site is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, the venture capital firm behind Twitter, Path, Zynga and others. Yet according to numerous sources, including Radium-One, Mevio is suspected of being flooded with bot traffic. It also shares huge portions of its traffic with other sites. Mevio officials were unavailable for comment.</p>
<!--pagebreak-->
<p>
<strong>Forward Health</strong><br />
Forward Health operates six sites, including Menshealthbase.com and Womenshealthbase.com&mdash;which, according to one active exchange buyer, are &ldquo;two of the most suspicious sites we&rsquo;ve ever seen.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
An analysis by social ad data company RadiumOne found that 94.4 percent of the traffic on Womenshealthbase is identical to Mensshealthbase. &ldquo;Something is really going on here,&rdquo; says Kyle Napierkowski, RadiumOne&rsquo;s director of ad optimization.</p>
<p>
But Forward Health managing partner Arthur Meyerovich says the company does not use bots, adding he is shocked to hear that it&rsquo;s been tied to the brewing scandal. &ldquo;We are not a tech company,&rdquo; says Meyerovich. &ldquo;This is absolutely surprising to me. We&rsquo;ve expanded our investigative efforts, and we&rsquo;re looking to third-party security companies. In fact, if you are a security company that deals with this, I would personally love to hear from you.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We take pride in our properties and content, which is created in-house by our doctors and health authors,&rdquo; he continues. &ldquo;Our business model online is advertising on our sites, and our clients range from top pharmaceutical brands to general large brands looking to reach a premium audience.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Is it possible that Forward Health is a victim here? While some in the business say that could be the case, others contend its sites have exhibited suspicious traffic for so long that it&rsquo;s doubtful company executives are unaware.<br />
<strong><a href="http://Modernbaby.com" target="_blank"><br />
Modernbaby.com</a> and <a href="http://Interiorcomplex.com" target="_blank">Interiorcomplex.com</a></strong><br />
Each of these sites peddles enormous traffic on the exchanges. For example, on a recent day Modern Baby was offering 19 million impressions via one exchange (quite the baby boom) and Interior Complex 30 million (the roaring housing market must be back).</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Interior Complex has always been a bad offender,&rdquo; reveals one demand-side platform (DSP) exec. &ldquo;In our last report we showed it overlaps with 138 other sites, and Modern Baby overlaps with 89 other sites.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
According to James Nicholson, founder of the sites&rsquo; parent company, <a href="http://brightlinemedia.net/" target="_blank">Brightline Media</a>, this sort of thing is just part of Web publishing. &ldquo;Like a lot of publishers, we&rsquo;re always dealing with bots,&rdquo; he says, adding, &ldquo;We are still investigating this issue.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Nicholson says Brightline employs 25 people, yet any articles on Modern Baby are by authors who use only first names, like &ldquo;Marye.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
It&rsquo;s not just the bylines that raise eyebrows&mdash;Modern Baby is also loaded with ads. Often the same ads appear down each side of the homepage. (Interestingly, Modern Baby has some sort of affiliate arrangement with Glam Media&rsquo;s Tend.com.) Among the brands spotted in a recent visit: an auto-play video ad for Procter &amp; Gamble&rsquo;s Febreze, along with banners for Amazon, MacKeeper, Essie Cosmetics and Norwegian Cruise Line. What&rsquo;s more, sister site Smartmomdeals.com featured four banners at the same time for the HR-management platform Namely, along with an auto-play unit delivered by Glam for the branded Web series Breakfast After Dark, for Unilever&rsquo;s I Can&rsquo;t Believe It&rsquo;s Not Butter.</p>
<p>
Says Nicholson: &ldquo;We are always trying different ad configurations. We are very active content producers. We have 25 writers and editors producing fresh content on a daily basis. Most choose to have their first and last names displayed as bylines, but some prefer just their first name. It&rsquo;s an individual choice for each author.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
According to RadiumOne, 40 percent of Modern Baby&rsquo;s traffic is shared with sister site Interior Complex, which covers architecture and design.</p>
<p>
Even more eye-opening, 66 percent of the site&rsquo;s traffic is the same as Womenshealthbase. Might Brightline and Forward Health be sharing trade secrets, or are they victims of the same bot?</p>
<p>
&ldquo;It could be a &lsquo;don&rsquo;t ask, don&rsquo;t tell&rsquo; policy these guys have,&rdquo; says Napierkowski. &ldquo;Some sites have legit traffic ... and mix in bad sources. Or it could be that everyone kind of knows. Or it could be a junior traffic guy [playing games].&rdquo;<br />
<br />
<strong>2Blue Media Group</strong><br />
This firm maintains a collection of 47 Web properties, including MOMentumNation.com, UniversityofSpeed.net, Womenhealthplans.com and Shoplick.com. Among the red flags: 2Blue Media has long been named on blacklists of sites maintained by various buyers and DSPs. One of its authors, Ellisha Rader, also writes for Alphabird, one of the firms caught up in Adweek&rsquo;s original investigation.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;2Blue Media has been all over our suspicious-activity reports for a long time. Almost all of their pubs show up,&rdquo; says a source.</p>
<p>
One 2Blue Media site in particular, Theamericangentleman.com, has a 71 percent overlap with destinations on a list compiled by Adweek with help from multiple sources, including RadiumOne, indicating bot traffic or gamesmanship.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;We are a soup-to-nuts lifestyle company,&rdquo; says co-founder Andrew Moskowitz, who denies any bot traffic. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what we do.&rdquo;</p>
<!--pagebreak-->
<p>
<strong><a href="http://DevicePlanet.net" target="_blank">DevicePlanet.net</a> and <a href="http://PerfectRecipes.net" target="_blank">PerfectRecipes.net</a></strong><br />
Who owns these brands? It&rsquo;s tough to tell. And yet, they share 50 percent of each other&rsquo;s audiences. (Interestingly, Perfect Recipes is littered with ads and elaborate disclaimers regarding cookies and privacy policies.) Each boasts huge traffic, though Device Planet recently disappeared from the Internet.</p>
<p>
<strong>Bluefin Media</strong><br />
On its LinkedIn page, this Perrysburg, Ohio-based company claims it is &ldquo;ranked in the Top 25 companies on the Internet&rdquo; and that its GossipCenter Network &ldquo;is one of the Top 3 entertainment news networks on the Internet,&rdquo; with more than 25 million unique visitors in the U.S. It says its &ldquo;loyal visitors generate over 2 billion page views per month consuming premium content ... people spend 5 million hours/month watching video on our sites.&rdquo; Meanwhile, sites like Gossipcenter.com and Celebrity-Gossip.net appear on multiple blacklists and share 40 percent of their traffic with the likes of Womenshealthbase.com and InteriorComplex.com.</p>
<p>
<img alt="" src="/files/fea-hot-air-03-2013.jpg" style="width: 300px; height: 974px; margin: 10px; float: right;" /> And there are many more suspect sites out there. <strong>(See sidebar for a few examples.)</strong></p>
<p>
One might wonder whether this is simply par for the course in an online ad business that becomes more automated by the day. &ldquo;Bots are part and parcel of the programmatic landscape,&rdquo; RadiumOne&rsquo;s Napierkowski points out. &ldquo;The pirates move on. It&rsquo;s really hard to catch these people.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
But who is at fault? Some blame media buyers for being negligent. Others point to middlemen involved in the online ad equation, the DSPs and supply-side platforms (SSPs) that look the other way. For example, many of the sites listed in this story are readily available via The Rubicon Project&rsquo;s inventory pool.</p>
<p>
&quot;We need to understand that this is an industry-wide problem, not an automated advertising problem,&quot; said Rubicon CEO Frank Addante. &quot;It affects everything, including direct sales, search and analytics. We invest many millions of dollars and have an engineering team dedicated to developing security and protection technologies to continually protect buyers and sellers. This is part of the reason we need to exist...This is not a problem that can be solved in the manual world.&quot;</p>
<p>
Still, others maintain all this is the fault of exchanges that cannot police themselves. In our initial report, Google&rsquo;s exchange was cited by many as the cleanest and safest. Yet last week, Adweek was made privy to the inventory supply available via Google&rsquo;s buying platform Invite Media, and many of the most suspicious publishers were present there too, indicating that Google isn&rsquo;t as vigilant as one might expect.</p>
<p>
&quot;We strive to maintain the highest quality standards on our Ad Exchange and in AdSense with systems honed by years of work on this front,&quot; said a Google spokesperson. &quot;We&#39;re working to bring this same level of rigor to the newer parts of our business as well.&quot;</p>
<p>
But nailing suspect publishers will only get you so far, according to Andrew Pancer, COO at m6d. &ldquo;Avoiding botnet traffic requires more than just blacklisting suspect sites,&rdquo; Pancer says. &ldquo;Additional tools need to be deployed to identify infected browsers and not serve ads to them even when they are visiting legitimate sites.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Could legitimate sites truly be innocent victims? Are they all just buying traffic from a bad guy no one will name, a traffic vendor that employs the same bot?</p>
<p>
According to an analysis by RadiumOne, there are 1,724 Web domains that share at least 10 percent of their audience with a group of worst-offender sites uncovered by Adweek, and 254 domains have an overlap of greater than 50 percent. Among the companies showing up include Fox Networks, Glam Media, Burst Media, 2Blue Media, Gorilla Nation, AudienceTV and MyPod Studios. The botnet or nets would appear to run deep.</p>
<p>
But while some see victims, others claim publishers must be aware of the kind of traffic they&rsquo;re driving.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;They know what they are buying,&rdquo; says Brian Fitzgerald, co-founder of Evolve Media. &ldquo;When you buy clicks for a third of a penny per click, you know it&rsquo;s not real.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Adds Heights Media&rsquo;s Thomas, &ldquo;If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
The industry appears to have arrived at the consensus that the time to act is now. Adweek has learned that the Interactive Advertising Bureau has organized a task force to address ghost sites and fraudulent traffic. The group, called TOGI (Traffic of Good Intent), is being headed by Federated Media CEO John Battelle and m6d president Penry Price. Many believe, in fact, that a third-party seal of approval for publishers is the only chance for real change. The alternative is that the medium will continue to be dogged by the perception that it&rsquo;s just not safe for brands.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Right now you have many clients trying to get more budgets for the Web,&rdquo; says Doug Chavez, vp of marketing at RadiumOne. &ldquo;Brand managers don&rsquo;t understand this&mdash;they rely on us and others to do the right thing. These guys go and fight for the dollars, saying, &lsquo;Digital works.&rsquo; If we don&rsquo;t fix this, this is going to come home to roost.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Until then, it may be best to follow Fox Mulder&rsquo;s lead: trust no one. Unless you want to believe in ghosts.&nbsp;</p>
TechnologyAmazonBluefin MediaEssie CosmeticsFebrezeghost sitesGlam MediaIabLinkedInMacKeeperMagazine ContentNorwegian Cruise LinesonlinePerfect RecipeProcter & GambleRadiumOneTrafficWebMon, 22 Apr 2013 04:00:50 +0000148788 at http://www.adweek.comFebreze Freshens Up Any Old Shipping Container That Smells Like Fishhttp://www.adweek.com/adfreak/febreze-freshens-any-old-shipping-container-smells-fish-140685
Tim Nudd<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/blogs/febreze.jpg"> <p>
Febreze air fresheners can mask some serious odors&mdash;like that fishy old shipping-container smell you&#39;re always trying to get out of your carpet. Below, check out a case-study video in which Grey, New York, makes a little mobile home out of a shipping container, drops it in New York&#39;s meatpacking district, and then asks blindfolded people where they think they are. Without fail, they believe they are in a lovely-smelling Eden full of puppies and rainbows. It&#39;s impressive&mdash;though it makes you wonder if Febreze wouldn&#39;t completely overpower your less-rancid living room with its powerful fresh stench.</p>
<p>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="272" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/40264903?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="484"></iframe></p>
Advertising & BrandingFebrezeGreyOut Of HomePackaged GoodsCreativeAgencyMon, 21 May 2012 18:55:16 +0000140685 at http://www.adweek.comGet Real http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/get-real-139908
Lucia Moses<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/get-real-hed-2012.jpg"> <p>
For years, few brands were associated with golf more than Buick&mdash;and no player was associated with golf more than Tiger Woods. The automaker reportedly paid Woods north of $50 million over eight years to brandish its logo and bring a younger edge to its products.</p>
<p>
But in 2008&mdash;a full year before a <em>National Enquirer</em> expos&eacute; about his galloping infidelity would tarnish his image and make a crashed Escalade in the dark Florida night as synonymous with the name <a href="/node/139491">Tiger Woods as the Masters green blazer</a>&mdash;General Motors dumped him. Back then, former GM vice chairman Bob Lutz remarked that Woods &ldquo;did little to help sell cars.&rdquo; And Buick didn&rsquo;t just quit Woods&mdash;it started employing &ldquo;real people,&rdquo; as opposed to celebrities or actors, in its marketing campaigns.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t anticipate us going back and having a relationship with a celebrity like Tiger Woods again&mdash;I&rsquo;m not sure anyone really believed that Tiger Woods drove a Buick,&rdquo; says Craig Bierley, Buick&rsquo;s director of advertising and promotions. &ldquo;I think you start to push the limits of credibility. There are more effective ways of communicating with the consumer without using celebrities, with really great creative.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
<a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/what-do-these-real-people-think-ads-starring-real-people-139960" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="/files/fea-real-people-01-2012.jpg" style="float: right; width: 195px; height: 1009px; " /></a>Buick isn&rsquo;t alone. Lately, marketers have fewer stars in their eyes. Only one in 10 ads now features a celebrity, down from a peak of 19 percent in 2004, according to Millward Brown, which has tracked the trend, mostly by way of TV spots, for the last dozen years.</p>
<p>
Ann Green, Millward Brown&rsquo;s senior partner for client solutions, says marketers are rethinking their relationships with high-profile figures in light of celebrity scandals and the weak economy. &ldquo;Advertisers as a whole have to be very smart and very aggressive about how they spend every single dollar,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;A bad phase in a celebrity&rsquo;s life can damage a brand&rsquo;s image and significantly erode the return they receive on their marketing investments.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
It&rsquo;s no wonder, then, that we&rsquo;re seeing more ads featuring everyday people, a time-tested strategy that gave us such iconic advertising moments as the Coke vs. Pepsi taste test, those Folgers crystals hidden-camera ads and, more recently, Dove&rsquo;s celebrated &ldquo;Real beauty&rdquo; campaign. Of late, still more brands are turning to Average Joe instead of Angelina Jolie to hawk their products.</p>
<p>
A few examples: For its &ldquo;Drive one&rdquo; campaign, Ford had actual customers give testimonials at mock press conferences&mdash;this, some time after Nutrisystem replaced Dan Marino and Marie Osmond with everyday folks as its spokespeople. In its campaign &ldquo;Sea food differently,&rdquo; Red Lobster put its own employees front and center, retiring its old spots featuring professional actors. Grey New York, which developed the Red Lobster effort, took a similar creative approach for Ally Bank and Febreze. &ldquo;Brands are asking for more authentic communications,&rdquo; says Tor Myhren, president and chief creative officer of Grey New York. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re stepping back from the casting and saying instead of using actors or celebrities, let&rsquo;s use real people.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
The result is creative that stands in stark, sometimes even gritty contrast to the typical super-slick TV spot.</p>
<p>
Take the typical commercials for fabric and air fresheners, showing housewives in impossibly pristine, sweet-smelling suburban homes. The Febreze spots went against type, putting ordinary people in blindfolds and plunking them in stinky situations like dirty restaurants and filthy living rooms.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;That one is probably the most shocking of any of them,&rdquo; Myhren says of the Febreze ads. &ldquo;It was a brand that, for a long time, was as much about putting more classic actors in situations that were very unreal, and we were painting the perfect-smelling world ... I think it really caught people&rsquo;s attention.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
When real people are used in combination with a social message, the effect can be even more impactful. In 2004, Dove made a splash with &ldquo;Real beauty,&rdquo; which won plaudits for picturing young women who had bodies typical of the average American woman rather than the impossibly perfect waifs preferred by so many marketers. Brands such as Nike and Adidas have also sought to portray women&rsquo;s bodies in realistic ways, but no campaign was quite as sensational or as groundbreaking as that of Dove, which brashly challenged society&rsquo;s standards of beauty and encouraged women to embrace their bodies as is.</p>
<!--pagebreak-->
<p>
Celebrities may seem as unkillable as cockroaches, spawning endless reality television shows and still helping peddle the millions of magazines and tabloids&mdash;and yet, in this culture of overexposure, oversharing and a media that runs 24/7, they also threaten to be less special, less admired and less influential.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;Popular culture lets celebrities be transparent&mdash;and the more information you have, the less relevant they are,&rdquo; explains John Colasanti, CEO of Solve, a Minneapolis agency that has put non-celebrities in campaigns for Harley-Davidson and Medifast. &ldquo;If you talk to consumers, they understand celebrities have trainers and contracts and are motivated in different ways than consumers are.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Research suggests that while celebrity endorsements can be successful given the right individual and context, it&rsquo;s doubtful how effective they really are. A 2011 study by Ace Metrix of 2,600 TV ads found that on average, celebrity ads scored much lower than non-celebrity ads in terms of effectiveness. &ldquo;People have told me, celebrities are surprised they can&rsquo;t get hired,&rdquo; says branding expert Eli Portnoy. &ldquo;I know of a couple of fairly A-list celebrities who are looking for endorsement work and are just getting turned down.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Anyone can see that advertisers haven&rsquo;t abandoned celebrities altogether. And yet, even brands that are still starstruck are being more judicious&mdash;employing stricter morals clauses, for example. That desire for greater due diligence has given rise to new businesses such as fanDNA, a joint venture of PMK*BNC and Interpret that matches brands with celebrities based on their social media activity and consumers&rsquo; attitudes. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just, how many Twitter followers do they have? We&rsquo;re getting into a lot of detail,&rdquo; says Chris Robichaud, CEO of PMK*BNC.</p>
<p>
Last year, Q Scores Co. saw growth of 10 percent to 15 percent in proprietary studies that match brands to personalities, says evp Henry Schafer. &ldquo;That kind of research is much more prevalent and important than ever before,&rdquo; Schafer says.</p>
<p>
Those in the endorsement business insist there&rsquo;s been no decline in their business. They say that as the economy has improved, brands are returning to celebrities, which they see as a safe harbor and a way to be heard through the marketing ruckus. As for those studies in which the public insists it isn&rsquo;t swayed by celebrities, Robichaud of PMK*BNC contends that &ldquo;subconsciously, they want to be like them&mdash;it&rsquo;s how we all are wired.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
One point of agreement is that the definition of celebrity has become broader with the rise of reality stars. &ldquo;There are velvet ropes to see Guy Fieri&mdash;they are the new celebrities,&rdquo; says Portnoy. Adds David Reeder, vp of Los Angeles-based personality licensing firm GreenLight: &ldquo;The endorsement areas have expanded. If you talk to talent agencies, their rosters have exploded.&rdquo; The appeal of these emerging stars is that they&rsquo;re cheaper than established names and can be very targeted.</p>
<p>
The strategy isn&rsquo;t always a winning one. When Sears introduced its Kardashian Kollection last year, the line failed to deliver the retailer a much-needed boost.</p>
<p>
Grey&rsquo;s Myhren tracks the anti-celebrity trend back to the Clinton sex scandal, which took overexposure of and disillusionment with the famous to a whole new level. It was helped along by the rise of digital media and the explosion in transparency and user-generated content it enabled.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;People are taking control,&rdquo; Myhren says. &ldquo;Everybody can film themselves now. That immediately opens you up for user-generated content. Whether it&rsquo;s on YouTube or Facebook, we&rsquo;re so used to seeing less professionally done movies. Because we&rsquo;re used to seeing things that are less slick, it becomes more acceptable for advertisers to do that. Because of how companies are becoming more and more exposed because of the digital age, part of this trend is that we&rsquo;re going to make our communications a little more real, a little more honest.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
Despite its ill-fated relationship with Tiger Woods and Bierley&rsquo;s comments about the pitfalls of celebrity pitchmen, Buick still turns to celebrities now and again, among them Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to build a relationship with people,&rdquo; Bierley says. &ldquo;People still spend money. But making more responsible choices is more of what&rsquo;s happened in the past couple of years. Transparency is a much greater issue.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
While it may be on the upswing, the use of ordinary people in advertising has its limitations. The conceit doesn&rsquo;t always work&mdash;especially when a script or acting is involved, Myhren points out. Then, there&rsquo;s the instant-recognition factor celebrities will always bring to the table.</p>
<p>
For better or for worse, celebrity endorsements are here to stay. &ldquo;When you use celebrities, it&rsquo;s always a little bit risky,&rdquo; Schafer says. &ldquo;But the rewards can be greater thanthe risks.&rdquo;<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/what-do-these-real-people-think-ads-starring-real-people-139960" target="_self">Find out <em>What Real People Think Of Ads Starring Real People&nbsp;</em>here.&nbsp;</a></p>
Advertising & BrandingTelevisionMarketingBuickCelebritiesDan MarinoFebrezeFolgersFordNational EnquirerOnlineRed LobsterTiger WoodsVideoMagazineRetailSportsTue, 01 May 2012 10:08:37 +0000139908 at http://www.adweek.comTide Suits Up With the NFLhttp://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/tide-suits-nfl-139849
Anthony Crupi<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/news_article/nfl-draft-tide-hed-2012.jpg"> <p>
Procter &amp; Gamble&rsquo;s Tide is looking to clean up with fans of the National Football League, inking a multiyear sponsorship with the Shield and its 32 franchises.</p>
<p>
The deal goes into effect at the start of the 2012 NFL campaign.</p>
<p>
This season marks the third in P&amp;G&rsquo;s five-year national sponsorship of the league. Under terms of the original deal, P&amp;G was given the option to align one of its brands with all 32 teams. (Only Gatorade enjoys a similar national/franchise sponsorship package.)</p>
<p>
While this marks the first season Tide will become an active presence around the NFL, the brand was written into the original P&amp;G contract. Other participating P&amp;G brands include Head &amp; Shoulders, Febreze, Vicks, Crest and Old Spice.</p>
<p>
Financial terms of Tide&rsquo;s deal with the 32 NFL teams were not disclosed. And while P&amp;G keeps a tight lid on the terms of its 2009 pact with the league, analysts estimate the CPG giant pays north of $100 million for the privilege of aligning its brands with the NFL.</p>
<p>
In August, consumers will begin to see specially marked packages of Tide bearing the NFL&rsquo;s official heraldic logo. Moreover, the individual team sponsorships provide the opportunity for Tide to use franchise logos and trademarks on its distinctive orange packaging. (In other words, fans in Pittsburgh are likely to see the <a href="http://hdwallpaperpics.com/wallpaper/picture/image/pittsburgh-steelers-logo.gif" target="_blank">three hypocycloids</a> of the Steelers&rsquo; logo displayed prominently in their grocer&rsquo;s detergent aisle.)</p>
<p>
Asked if Tide would develop 30-second spots around individual NFL teams, Sundar Raman, North American fabric care marketing director at P&amp;G, said he is not at liberty to discuss any upcoming media executions. &ldquo;Whatever we do, we want the creative to be holistic across all media&mdash;print, television, digital,&rdquo; Raman said.</p>
<p>
If previous P&amp;G efforts are any indication, TV is likely to play an integral part of Tide&rsquo;s media mix. In 2010, P&amp;G planned a far-reaching campaign around <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsu-KWws29M" target="_blank">heroically tressed Steelers safety Troy Polamalu</a>, who serves as the spokesman for Head &amp; Shoulders.</p>
<p>
Along with a number of national 30-second spots, P&amp;G developed a &ldquo;first-person tackler&rdquo; Web game and a micro site (TroysHair.com). Head &amp; Shoulders also took out a $1 million insurance policy on Polamalu&rsquo;s hair through Lloyd&rsquo;s of London.</p>
<p>
Tide is the most-advertised household product brand, accounting for around 8 percent of all measured media spend in the category. Parent P&amp;G is far and away the nation&rsquo;s biggest advertiser, investing $2.95 billion in 2011&mdash;$1 million more than runner-up AT&amp;T, per Kantar Media.</p>
<p>
All told, TV accounted for 58 percent of P&amp;G&rsquo;s overall media spend, or $1.72 billion. Magazines represented about a third of the company&rsquo;s 2011 ad expenditures.</p>
<p>
The Tide deal represents an opportunity to get the brand in front of the millions of women who watch the NFL every week. According to Nielsen, women make up one-third of the deliveries for all nationally televised NFL games.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;For us, the NFL&rsquo;s growing female fan base played a big role in developing the Tide sponsorship,&rdquo; Raman said. &ldquo;It allows us to tap into America&rsquo;s passion for the NFL and fan loyalty toward their home teams.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
According to an <a href="http://www.adweek.com/photo/data-points-tailgate-time-135308#" target="_blank"><em>Adweek</em>/Harris poll</a> conducted at the start of the 2011 NFL season, 64 percent of all Americans say they watch the NFL.</p>
<p>
Tide enjoys a home-field advantage of sorts, given its preeminence among NFL equipment managers. (Even before the deal was announced, Tide was the preferred detergent in 29 of the 32 team locker rooms.)</p>
<p>
Ed Wagner, the equipment manager of the <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/television/giants-pats-set-tv-ratings-record-138092" target="_blank">Super Bowl champion New York Giants</a>, says he uses Tide in tackling 5,510 pounds of laundry he&rsquo;s responsible for every week.</p>
<p>
&ldquo;The players are issued two jerseys and a pair of pants and, for the most part, that should get them through the whole season,&rdquo; Wagner said. &ldquo;So you can see why the detergent we use is so important.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
The NFL deal comes as P&amp;G finalizes its plans to activate 30 brands in and around the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The company will sponsor the Winter and Summer Games through 2020.</p>
Advertising & BrandingTelevision2012 Summer OlympicsCableCrestFebrezeHead & ShouldersNational Football LeagueNetworksNew York GiantsNflOld SpicePittsburgh SteelersProcter & GambleRatingsSportsTideTroy PolamaluVicksPackaged GoodsWed, 25 Apr 2012 19:33:21 +0000139849 at http://www.adweek.comFast Chat: Possible Worldwide CEO Trevor Kaufman’s On Partnership With Greyhttp://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/fast-chat-possible-worldwide-ceo-trevor-kaufman-s-partnership-grey-138127
Tim Peterson<p>
Possible Worldwide and Grey&rsquo;s Europe, Middle East and Africa division have formed a partnership that will see the two WPP shops collaborating on accounts, starting with shared client Procter &amp; Gamble. <em>Adweek</em> talked with Possible Worldwide&rsquo;s global CEO Trevor Kaufman&rsquo;s about the pairing.</p>
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<strong><em>Adweek</em>: What brought about the partnership with Grey?</strong> We really bought into it in order to come up with a more consolidated offer for P&amp;G, and to create the kind of team that is successful for WPP in situations like Team Ford, where we have these cross-agency teams that work for clients. And P&amp;G had asked us to figure out some kind of partnership there. But what is happening is that we&rsquo;re winding up pitching a lot of business together. It&rsquo;s cool because so often you go into these partnerships and the bigger group is really trying to take advantage of the smaller group. And in this particular case, Grey has been really open and giving with us about exposing their client relationships and their internal teams to us and being open-minded about working with us. And by the same token, we&rsquo;re open-minded about the fact that they&rsquo;re building a digital capability internally too. But what&rsquo;s cool is what they&rsquo;re building is not like Possible; it&rsquo;s like Grey.</p>
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&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>So how does the partnership operate, and when should we expect to see the first work?</strong></p>
<p>
We&rsquo;re working together now already. As these things happen, we started working first and announced second. [The agencies are working] both out of New York and London. I think those two locations are going to see the majority of the partnership in the short term. Although we&rsquo;d love to expand the partnership to Asia, I think New York and London are the areas where we mutually have the most opportunity to help clients. And there&rsquo;s work being done for clients now. We&rsquo;ve been working together for a while on the Febreze account for P&amp;G. There&rsquo;s a lot of coordinated work there. And now we&rsquo;re partnering on several other brands with them. So we have a steering committee between [Possible and Grey] that is led by [Grey New York managing director] Michael Houston. And [Grey Group chairman and CEO] Jim Heekin and I meet all the time and talk about opportunities for us to work together. And then our CFO Diane Holland meets with [Grey Group CFO] Bob Oates, and they work out all the financial terms of every account that we partner on together. And then we have some people co-located at Grey. We think that is really critical because we want to really integrate with them culturally. The best concepts come when you&rsquo;re really together. And then lastly it gives Grey&mdash;again, Grey has lots of digital folks already&mdash;it gives them access to our production capability. We have several hundred people in Delhi. We have about 120 people in Costa Rica. And those are primarily technology and production people, so it gives them a lot of depth on the bench in terms of executing against big digital campaigns.</p>
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&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>When did you two start working together under this partnership?</strong></p>
<p>
We have talked forever about how to help accelerate and augment Grey&rsquo;s digital transition, just because Jim Heekin and I are such good friends. I think the real turning point was at Cannes [last] year. Jim went away and created a deck saying here&rsquo;s what this would look like and here&rsquo;s how we could integrate. He really put a lot of thought behind it, and it just made perfect sense to me. And the other person who&rsquo;s been very involved is Tamara Ingram who runs the P&amp;G business at WPP. Tamara has been insisting there&rsquo;s a trend towards consolidation, the clients want to deal with fewer partners, they need to have both Possible and Grey on their team, and they want to deal with one cohesive group as opposed to managing communications between the two. So it made perfect sense to us.</p>
<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>Has the nomenclature describing Possible&rsquo;s or Grey&rsquo;s relationship with P&amp;G changed?</strong></p>
<p>
It hasn&rsquo;t. We still do a lot of work that is either for P&amp;G directly or for [one of P&amp;G&rsquo;s agencies through the company&rsquo;s brand agency leader model]. Now we have three areas of our P&amp;G work. We have work that we do directly for P&amp;G. We have work that we do through [P&amp;G&rsquo;s brand agency leaders]. And now we have work that we do with Grey. What we&rsquo;ve been calling our relationship with Grey is &ldquo;Grey Powered by Possible.&rdquo; On the one hand, we want the strategic direction and the culture and flavor of the offering to be aligned with Grey, but we want to give them the capability to execute against big digital programs at scale around the world.</p>
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&nbsp;</p>
<p>
<strong>When did the partnership officially take effect?</strong></p>
<p>
This has been something we built opportunistically. We didn&rsquo;t sort of sign a deal. We made an agreement about how we would on-board businesses it to it. It&rsquo;s been in the works for several months; it&rsquo;s now finally public.</p>
Advertising & BrandingFebrezeGreyProcter & GambleWPPAgencyWed, 08 Feb 2012 21:47:03 +0000138127 at http://www.adweek.comFebreze Can Mask Even the Most Putrid Surroundingshttp://www.adweek.com/adfreak/febreze-can-mask-even-most-putrid-surroundings-133257
David Gianatasio<img src="http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-detail/blogs/febreze_stink_test.jpg"> <p>
Folks are approached by strangers on the streets of SoHo, blindfolded and whisked away to strange, smelly locations. That&#39;s typical treatment in NYC, and locals are surely used to it by now. But this is a new Febreze fabric freshener <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/business/media/01adco.html?_r=2" target="_blank">&quot;Breathe Happy&quot; campaign by Grey New York</a>. In the ads, people are taken to stinky spots ranging from a Chinese eatery kitchen with raw fish on the counters to a dank and filthy room with crud on the walls. But not to worry, it&#39;s all been sprayed with Febreze. Asked to report what they smell, the blindfolded subjects sniff and describe floral and citrus scents, without a hint of their yucky surroundings, before the big reveal. Hey, after the streets of SoHo, <em>anyplace</em> smells like a tropical garden. Check out one ad below and two more after the jump. The &quot;Breathe Happy&quot; parody video is a no-brainer: The test subjects would report smelling only &quot;lilacs and lemons&quot; as they stand in the county morgue, being devoured by freshly autopsied zombies.&nbsp;</p>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="305" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Oggk3DguQKk?rel=0&amp;hd=1" width="484"></iframe></p>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="305" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WG1gB1xwEYo?rel=0" width="484"></iframe></p>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="305" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/btyzuCEPc9M?rel=0" width="484"></iframe></p>
Advertising & BrandingFebrezeGreyRealityPackaged GoodsCreativeAgencyFri, 08 Jul 2011 12:22:49 +0000133257 at http://www.adweek.comYour entire house can smell like Christmashttp://www.adweek.com/adfreak/your-entire-house-can-smell-christmas-14914
Adweek Blogs<p><a href="http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/shopper-marketing/e3i064db40204ec9865b4834e269a584213" style="float: left;"><img alt="Febreze" class="at-xid-6a00d8341c51c053ef0105365b2669970c " src="/files/adfreak/6a00d8341c51c053ef0105365b2669970c-200wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; width: 173px;" /></a>
</p><p>For those who can&#39;t get enough of the holidays, Febreze introduces <a href="http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/shopper-marketing/e3i064db40204ec9865b4834e269a584213">a limited-edition line of scents</a> (available in sprays, candles and so on) that make the whole house smell like Christmas. The scents include Vanilla Bean, Cranberry &amp; Frost and Winter Evening &amp; Warmth. What, no Musky Reindeer or Chestnut-Roasted Elf? The company was probably wise to avoid traditional yuletide fragrances like frankincense and myrrh. Not because of their religious connotations—they just don&#39;t smell so great. In any case, times are tough, and with suggested retail prices of these new Febreze products ranging from $2.99 to $7.99, they&#39;re a lot cheaper than springing for a Christmas tree to provide that whiff of seasonal cheer.</p><p><em>—Posted by David Gianatasio</em></p>http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/your-entire-house-can-smell-christmas-14914#commentsAdvertising & BrandingFebrezeGianatasioHolidaysHouse And HomeThu, 11 Dec 2008 09:32:06 +000014914 at http://www.adweek.com